Education Plan Members Will See Refunds

Education Plan Members Will See Refunds

Article excerpt

Mississauga, Ont.

Members of the General Synod's Continuing Education Plan (CEP) will see refunds of their existing contributions due to changes made to comply with requirements set by the Canada Revenue Agency. The Council of General Synod (COGS) approved the changes at its fall meeting.

The changes, effective Jan.1, 2008, include eliminating the employee contribution of $150 per year and reducing the rate of reimbursing expenses to 80 per cent of eligible expenses--with 75 per cent to come from the employee account and 5 per cent from the general assets of the CEP. The employer will continue to contribute $450 per employee per year. The change also authorizes the administrator of the CEP to pay out the existing employee contributions to all the employees as of Dec. 31, 2007.

The changes mean that if an employee chooses to use the CEP, for instance, by taking a training course, funding will come from two sources. "First, a larger portion would come from the CEP fund, replicating the previous employer contributions. …